


Sunder

by inSufficient_Caution



Category: Ori and the Blind Forest
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:42:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28304010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inSufficient_Caution/pseuds/inSufficient_Caution
Summary: With Ori's final sacrifice, the wheel of seasons turned from a deep and forlorn Winter to a vibrant, long awaited Spring.  But the wheel ever turns; from Spring to Summer, from Summer to Fall.  Some, however, are not ready to make the sacrifices yet again, to command a life be given so utterly to service.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 18





	Sunder

It is the finest hour of the night, stars twirling upon a heavenly canvas as the final glimmers of solar light depart from the land, leaving only the lunar disk and its attendants to shine in their tenebrous vigil. Seir's golden radiance dims, and the Spirit Olive's warmth withdraws, only just, as the last great Owl of Nibel perches upon her former sibling to share in the sight of a peaceful night, a satchel at her side, with telescope and other accoutrements for the evening. What is not bathed in gold is streaked silver-white, the canopies of the great forest bathing in light and Light as it has for the decades since the Will had received its Heir. Since Hope had spent itself in restoring the cycle of life.

There is the sound of crickets, the flicker of fires in the distance, the lantern-glows from the Wellsprings Glade faintly visible from even so far as the Tree rooted in the northern foothills of Niwen. It is the solstice, the day when the names of the lost are written on birchbark slips and lifted skywards on parchment lanterns, the day when the Spirit Guardians of the land begin preparing their charges for the coming spring, for the life that springs from the ashes. It is the day where the price of today is counted in the blood shed yesterday. It has been years since the Spirit Olive honored those lost in battle with the Decay with an exercise of its Light. Years since such honors were necessary.

It has been nearly a century since the names have been shed.

In silence stands the tree and their avian sister. The Light in the former's cradle is a poor substitute for the warmth of its heart, and Ku feels the chill that whispers in the air even through her down. Slowly, the nightlife of the Forest awakens, lights twinkling in mirror to their skyward counterparts, fueled by the Light which churns through the land at the Spirit Tree's behest. The crickets which have called the Orchard of Hope home this past season stutter, the song diverting as other insects, other creatures, begin their nightly hunts amidst the carpets of shadow-flecked green and brown and white and yellow that characterize the grasses and bushes and trees and ferns of the Forest; the dirt roads and wooden structures imposed by its inhabitants.

Ku can count them all. Has hunted them, in younger times, in winters past. What she cannot see, she can hear; insect, avian, mammal, reptile, amphibian. If she would fly but a kilometer out, she would hear far less, if anything at all. Only those that live in this place of eternal spring continue so deep into winter's heart.

”You seem troubled.” Deep, melodic. Nothing like Ori's chirpish, mirthful tones.

”What gave it away?” So much older, now. Nothing like the fledgling whose enthusiasm carried them both into the heart of peril itself. “The silence? I... I don't have much to say, anymore.”

”I was beginning to warm to your insistence on accompanying the Olive through this evening, Owl.” _She_ had not changed at all. Ku did not know whether that were a blessing, or a curse. Nonetheless, she nodded. The respect, hesitant though it was, would be useful.

”We all lost people. Friends. Family.” A piercing yellow-orange gaze dips from the sky above towards the roots of the great Tree. Where its mother had chosen to spend her final evenings. Where her mother clung to all that was left of her child, even in death. Where her rescued chicks and adopted Spirit children would occasionally play - before duty came foremost.

”If... If this is about Isra -” The Spirit Olive ventured, seeking answers where none would be found.  
”I've mourned my child -”  
” _Our_ child.”

Ku forsook the breath which normally steadied her nerves, a steel in her eyes which the Tree would recount could match Kuro's own wrathful stare. “Can you call yourself their father, their mother - without ever touching them? Without being there for their mistakes and for their victories. Without being there to sooth them through their nightmares and encourage them towards their dreams? Can a wooden god _have_ children?”

It is the Light's turn to be affronted, her power churning in its cradle “And it is from _our_ Light combined that they are formed; mine and the Spirit Olive's. They are our children, regardless of the trappings we cannot indulge in.”

”Pax, Seir.” Ever the voice of wisdom, the Tree so much like that from which it had been crafted. “But the Will is correct, sister. They are our children, too. And we feel their loss as keenly as you do.”

There is a knot in the owl's throat, an obstruction that chokes without choking, that burns without burning. Tears sting at the corner of her eyes. Wings flare momentarily, before resettling; fluffing up in a nervous habit born when she was young and lived someplace colder - yet warmer. _Wounds never heal when they are picked apart - re-opened before they have had time to recover_ , Opher had once taught her. It was about physical wounds at the time, the wounds Opher knew both in their delivery and receipt; but Ku had since learned the truth that such wisdom applied to wounds of the spirit, of the mind, as well.

A change of tactics. A flinch away from Niwen's Light, as Ku resettles her weight upon her perch, straightening with a flex of her talons. ”The rest will be coming with me. We've found Gumo's boat. Raft. What's left of it. I still think we should have asked the Gorlek for a newer ship. What we've made... It's small for a dozen people.”

”Most of that number can fly, Ku. We still remember their fledging ceremonies.”

She nods. “Yes. But the flight is long, as both of us recall. I was...” _Reckless_ , was the word she did not want to say. The word which would betray her. The boughs of the Spirit Tree shifted, the only movement it was physically capable of anymore. Still better than when they were a sapling and could not even speak on their own. When she still called them 'sibling.'

”You don't have to go, sister.”

”You don't understand, Spirit Tree. This forest takes. It takes and it takes and it _takes_. The joy I have found here, I can find elsewhere. Will find elsewhere. It has taken too much for me to stay.”

”It hasn't taken _me_ , Ku. I won't stop you - can't stop you, you've always been so stubborn - but I don't want to say goodbye.” _You're the last one left who remembers my name_ , Ku wants them to say. _You're the last one left who knows who I really was_. But they don't. And Ku breathes a silent prayer for the sibling lost so long ago. _You promised to take care of me, no matter what happened_.

Seir flickers, “My own power may not always be enough to safeguard this land,” she offers, “you did promise once, to watch over your sibling, as you would your children.” As had Ori before her; as she should have done _better_ , in the Silent Woods. A promise reciprocated in the knowledge that her sibling would do the same - again - had their positions been reversed. As if their positions could ever be reversed.

”They've been dead for a long time, Seir. I'm sorry.” At last a relief of the weight upon her chest. A release of the anxiety she would not admit she had. The Tree shifts, stunned, as the Light's glow turns from a shifting orb of glimmering embers to a single solid, shining sphere, “I'm glad Mother isn't here to see this.”

Before another word could be spoken. Before another action taken. She has always perched next to the cradle; at first it was a childish attempt to intimidate the Light. But now, the habit serves a darker purpose. Seir is in her grasp, and with a squeeze and a sound like the shattering of glass and the warmth of Light against her feathers, the golden orb is wounded. Not shattered; the Light is whole, but it cannot act, it cannot strike against its assailant any longer.

”You killed them,” The tears are flowing, though they should not. “Shriek dealt the wounds, but _you_ ended it. Did they even have a choice? Fade to silence, let everything go, or let you have your way. They bought our lives with theirs.”

The Tree is momentarily without voice, for it is harmed by the mere removal of its core and partner, but Ori had been stubborn, and the Tree inherited his strength. “And what of the Forest? What of the Glades?”

The drop from the Spirit Tree's crown is simple, for a being as large and agile as Ku. She turns her head towards the trunk of the Tree, noting how its golden glow dims and retreats into the heartwood, the gaps in the bark falling dark, as the stars before the dawn. The insects have stopped singing. The animals have retreated. There is a palpable wrongness in this place once blessed.

Ku can feel the chill press further into her being, into her bones.

”We're stronger now. Whatever comes next, it will be slow, it will be starting anew from a foundation we've already obliterated. No. The Glades were safe when Ori made their sacrifice. They will be safe even now.”

The owl lifts Seir's barely-conscious shape higher, looking closer at the being which robbed her of her sibling, who would demand another child when the Tree that was once Ori met the limits of their life. Another light. Another sacrifice. It made her sick.

”We're doing this right, this time,” she declared. “It's my turn to make that trade.”

Ku was born of darkness. Her mother a great shadow whose might could withstand all but the utmost expression of the Spirit Tree's Light. Hatched and raised by a Spirit Guardian and their loving family, in a healthy Forest whose power waxed by the day. Ori's Light had grown, as her shadows deepened. A cripple, unable to satisfy the yearning born within her very soul for the skies above. And yet they gave of themselves, shone their light so she would not be lost. She had been brought back from death by the Light. Her wing, healed. It had been her sibling's final act, before the Tree was born.

"One life." Her gaze rose to where the Spirit Olive's cradle stood, empty. "To save the lives of all."

She thrust the orb into her beak and swallowed, the searing pain a footnote in the surge of adrenaline the act produced. The Spirit Olive could only watch. She looked pityingly at it.

”And the children? Our little Lights, are you going to snuff them out as well?”

A shake of the head, a turn away, towards the satchel she had all but forgotten in the struggle, brief as it was. The tears flow freely, there is no knot in the owl's throat. A dark cloud stirs overhead, blinding the heavens to this act. The air is curiously still, the world itself holds its breath.

”No. They'll be confused. Scared, even. But you've taught them the story of this place so many times that this... It isn't unthinkable. And while they love you... You've always been at a remove. Always been so much more distant. Seir didn't understand. But they'll mourn. And they'll get better.” A steel rod, a spike, with tapered point and inscribed with nigh-incomprehensible patterns of lines and circuits. A crystalline bulb decorates its broader end, glowing a pale blue. She had always been her father's daughter. She regards it, momentarily. And breathes.

In.

Out.

This is for Ori. Their Light. And every Spirit Guardian who might be asked to take up their mantle in the future.

”When the Light of the land gathers itself again,” she starts, whispering, “I can only hope it's a Light of hope, of compassion... Maybe even -” Her voice breaks, some wretched cross between a cough, a sob, and a breath wrenching itself from her breast. “I've read that the souls of Spirit Guardians are returned to the Forest with their Light. I can't bring you with me, sib.” A stuttered exhalation, a shake in the talons and the feathers and the vision clouded over by tears. “I want to, but I can't. I can't carry your Light, I don't even know where to start.”

”But I can stop this tree from withering.” The spike steadies in her grip. “When the Spirit Shard is spent, it'll kick-start the siphon and start drawing from the Grove. The Decay won't come back.

”Our children will _never_ wear your chains.”

It is the finest hour of the night indeed. The stars fade as the dawn begins to rise, the sun breaking the horizon to gaze unfeelingly upon the empty husk pierced with an iron spike, the glow of lumicraft the only evidence of its abnormality. Its bark has already begun to fade and grow brittle, the leaves have already turned yellow. The eternal spring has eclipsed its summer, and yields to fall. And the shattered visage of the family upon its base leers somberly outwards. A greater wound than all others.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm pretty sure I needed to write this, sooner or later. As you look back on the work above, I ask that you speculate, that you doubt. I ask that you take the time to think about the scenario I have presented, and what may have precipitated it. Most of all, I ask that you come to your own understanding of what this work may mean to you. As for me; it's a lament - an expression of melancholy and rage, one which was sorely needed with the events of the last year.
> 
> In any case, I leave you all with well-wishes and what good fortune I can give. May the new year treat you well.


End file.
